First Tower Park

First Tower Park

First Tower Park, pictured here in 1938, also known to some, incorrectly, as St Andrew's Park, lies to the north of St Aubin's Road between First Tower and Boulevard Avenue. It is Jersey's oldest enclosed public park

Gervaise Le Gros, who gave the land on which the park was created

First Tower Park was opened in 1911, the land, known as Clos de Devant, having been donated by Gervaise Le Gros, Seigneur of the Fief de Priaux de Mont Cochon.

In 1869 the Ville-ès-Nouaux Neolithic dolmen was discovered on the land where the park would later be built. Apart from the damage done by quarrymen looking for stone before La Société Jersiaise were alerted, the dolmen has been preserved and it is today a feature of the lower section of the park.

A large open grassed area above has been used for sports activities by First Tower School and next to it is a children's playground.

Also in the park is St Andrew's Church which opened in 1927 to replace the original St Andrew's, a chapel at the Esplanade, which had existed as a chapel under the stewardship of the Parish Church of St Helier since the mid-19th century. It is because of the presence of the church that the park is sometimes wrongly called St Andrew's Park, but these dates indicate that the park came first.

The dolmen